


Taking Comfort

by skullage



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:27:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skullage/pseuds/skullage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles lets out a sigh. "Great, I willed myself into a dimension where every day is Opposite Day. And Peter Hale still isn't dead."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> blanket warning for minor character death/canon character death, references to abuse and past abusive relationships, a touch of violence, may contain traces of spoilers for season 3b, but is set after 3a. the line “carnal night a man touches with his senses” is taken from a [neruda poem](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/carnal-apple-woman-filled-burning-moon/).

Stiles falls out of bed disoriented and only slightly sore, feeling more like he went through a punishing workout than being tossed against a wall by the Alpha twins during their latest inter-pack skirmish. Deucalion hasn’t made a move since the eclipse, probably tucked tail and run, but Ethan and Aiden aren’t a part of his pack anymore, or of Scott’s. They don’t recognise Scott’s claim as Alpha, and without Derek, with only the two wolves, Stiles, and Allison, they’re barely evenly matched.

Any thought of them is too heavy for the morning. Sunlight swarms in through the window, erasing any hope Stiles has for a sleep in before school and another day of classes, peacekeeping, fighting, researching whatever new threat rears its head, keeping their sanity intact. His bedroom floor isn’t soft enough to try. He could’ve sworn he fell asleep at Derek’s, staying awake to fight a possible concussion while Scott kept watch, perched on the stairwell, anticipating another unlikely assault they wouldn’t be ready for. Lately, it’s been easier for them to stay there; after word spread that Derek skipped town no one bothered to look there for them. Stiles couldn’t risk waking the Sheriff at midnight to explain in half-truths and code why he was covered in bruises and wearing a BEACON HILLS CLASS OF 2005 sweatshirt. Scott must have taken him home later, when Stiles was too unconscious to argue.

He disentangles himself from the sheets without moving off the floor. He’s still wearing Derek’s hoodie, rucked up sometime in the night to expose his torso, bruised and ruined with claw marks, the muscles in his stomach more pronounced from his recent exercises in running for his life. He stands to assess the damage, figure out if he can get away with the worried looks his father shoots him instead of having to answer any questions outright, only – his mirror has been moved next to the window, a mistake Stiles only made once before Isaac kicked it over climbing into his window, too impatient to wait for a text, shoving a map and a crudely drawn spiral into his hands with orders from Derek to “figure it out”. Stiles glances around at his mostly clean floor, new bed sheets, all the furniture slightly out of place, until he stops at the dresser.

Instead of the row of collectible action figures lined up along the dresser, there’s a collection of trophies: lacrosse, athletics, certificates in debate and public speaking, a plaque for second place in the Junior Science and Humanities Symposia, competitions that Stiles hasn’t had time to think about let alone enter since werewolves invaded his life and staying alive became his main priority. He almost expects someone with the same name to walk in and give an explanation for why Stiles happened to wake up in their room, and why it looks so much like his. Another glance around confirms that isn’t going to happen – a picture on his desk shows him posing with an official in a suit, shaking hands while he accepts a trophy in the shape of a film reel that matches the one on his desk.

Stiles takes a deep breath to quell the rising panic, and that’s when he sees it. Another picture, months old at most, of him posing in the living room, sporting a buzz cut and the same suit he wore to the spring dance. In the picture, he has his arm around a woman with his eyes and six more years worth of laugh lines than he remembers, beaming at the camera, her head on Stiles’s shoulder.

His hands shake as he picks up the photograph, dropping it with a clatter on the desk almost immediately as the smell of frying bacon reaches his room. He skips the stairs three at a time and comes to a stop in the kitchen doorway, heart pounding in his ears over the scrape of a metal spatula and the sweet, familiar sound of his mother’s voice humming.

She turns with a sweep of blonde hair and a smile that causes Stiles’s heart to skip a beat.

“Mom?” he says. His vocal cords strain with the effort of voicing the word.

“Morning, sweetie.” She waves the spatula at the frying pan, says, “Breakfast?” like it happens every day.

Stiles should take a step back and assess the situation, think rationally about how hard he hit his head if he’s woken up in a reality where his mom is still alive, if he’s still dreaming so lucidly he can smell her perfume and feel the granite counter he grips to keep himself upright. Instead, he moves forward, dragging his mom into a hug and burying his face in her hair, closing his eyes to keep from crying over the last decade of imagining this moment, pressure and warmth as she hugs him back.

His eyes are wet when he pulls away – minutes or days later, it still isn’t enough. She thumbs across his cheek with a worried smile. “Are you okay? You look like you didn’t get enough sleep.”

He nods, swiping a palm across his face. “I’m fine, mom, I – I missed you, that’s all.” She drags him in for another hug and they stay that way until the bacon burns to blackened strips.

~

The drive to school is surreal, sitting in the passenger side of his mom’s Ford Focus while he tries not to stare, ignoring whatever soft country rock is playing through the speakers, chewing on the cuff of his shirt despite the expensive fabric. When they pull up to the parking lot, Stiles doesn’t make a move to get out until Claudia reaches in the backseat for her bag. “Come on,” she says. “You can’t sit here all day.”

“Why don’t I take the day off school? We can go to that park you always took me to as a kid.”

Claudia settles back into her seat with a sigh. “I know today is tough, kiddo, but you told me you were okay with going to school. Your dad would be proud of you for that.”

Stiles swallows past what feels like a lump of ice in his throat, turning his insides cold at the words _would be_.

She continues, “Besides, it wouldn’t look very good if the Vice Principal and her son were both absent.”

Stiles nods absently. “Yeah, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”

She smiles again, a little sad. “We can visit the cemetery after school, if you like. After lacrosse practise?”

Stiles looks away and Claudia’s hand squeezes around his. It’s one thing to be used to a parent dying, and another to feel it fresh, all over again. He feels the weight and warmth of her hand even after she takes it away, like it’s been replaced by something else that isn’t much more than a memory.

His head buzzes as he makes his way into the school, losing sight of his mom in the crowded hallway as he reaches his locker. Scott is already there, hunched over a textbook, the relief that Stiles feels clearing his mind. Scott jumps when Stiles claps a hand on his shoulder.

“Dude, you are never gonna guess the morning I’ve had. I am so glad to see you.”

Scott shrugs his hand off with a scowl. “What, you need target practise? Not interested, man.”

Stiles steps back as if he’s been hit. “What’s up with you?”

“Look, if you want the stuff, it’s cash up front. Ten dollars a pinch. And I deal during business hours, not school hours. Got it?” The look Scott gives him is pure venom.

“Are you—” Stiles looks around, lowers his voice. “Are you talking about drugs? What the hell, Scott?”

Scott makes a noise like a laugh, but there’s no humour in it. He shoves his books into his backpack, rolls his eyes like he doesn’t have the patience for this conversation. “Just because we sat next to each other in middle school doesn’t mean you get to judge me. Take it up with your buddy Jackson and his First Line Club. Use your head, Stiles, where do you think he gets it from?”

Stiles feels his face fall, slack-jawed and disbelieving. Scott sneers like it’s a personal victory. “Wait, you’re not first line?”

“Sitting on the bench for two seasons lost its appeal.”

Stiles’s mind runs over time trying to process all the information at once, like it’s still buffering from finding his mom making breakfast in the kitchen. “Does that mean you’re not a werew—”

“Goddamnit,” Scott interrupts, snapping his locker shut with enough force to rattle the surrounding locks. Stiles jumps, but Scott is looking over his shoulder toward the doors, expression angry and as pained as Stiles has seen it yet. He follows Scott’s gaze to where two police officers are walking toward them, one he recognises from — whatever life he grew up in that isn’t this. The Sheriff’s badge is pinned to Tara’s belt, but Stiles only spares it a look before he catches sight of the man marching in front of the officers, all six-plus-feet of him and his suit, FBI badge hanging around his neck and a look on his face that matches Scott’s.

“Dude, your dad’s still back?”

“Back,” Scott repeats, “he never left.” He doesn’t have time to elaborate before Agent McCall forces his way between them and pulls Scott away by the scruff of his neck.

“There’s my boy,” he says, through gritted teeth, a snarl that raises Stiles’s hackles, “my pride and joy, apple of my eye.” Scott tries to pull away but his dad’s grip is too strong for a hundred-and-forty pound human teenager. “Son, I got a call this morning about you from the Sheriff’s department, and do you know what they had to say?”

Scott glares up at his father, as intimidating as he can be through his mop of shaggy hair. “Congratulating me on being an upstanding member of the community, I bet.”

“Try dragging me away from a crime scene to remind me how much of an embarrassment my only son is. Really, Scott? Tagging vehicles again?”

Scott pulls the corner of his mouth up in a grimace. “You can’t prove it.”

Agent McCall’s answering glare is murderous. “They caught you on security camera, genius.”

Stiles’s stomach roils at the scene playing out, the long-buried instinct to protect Scott warring with the look Scott gave him when Stiles mistook them for friends. “Hey, that’s enough,” he calls, stepping between them into the line of fire. He’s faced a pack of Alpha werewolves with minimal backup, a kanima, and Peter Hale, but Scott’s dad is something else, the monster from their childhood that conjures up unprocessed fears. He almost puts a hand on the Agent’s chest to back him away, pulls it back in case he loses it.

Agent McCall rounds on him. “Excuse me? I’m talking to my son.”

“No, you’re _yelling_ at your son.” The bell rang three minutes ago but most of the other students are still in the hall, watching the next best thing to reality television. Stiles continues, “In a school, in front of the Vice Principal’s son. Unless you want security to haul your ass out, I suggest you take it down a notch.”

The deputy moves to push Stiles out of the way, but Scott already has a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back. “Stay out of it, Stiles,” he spits, nothing but ice in his tone, “I don’t need your help.”

The Sheriff moves between them, leading Scott out with an arm around his shoulder and a warning look at Scott’s father. “Alright, boys, that’s quite enough.” The deputy doesn’t take his hand off Stiles’s shoulder until the others are halfway to the exit. By that time most of the crowd has dispersed, the last several people casting looks over their shoulders. That, at least, is familiar.

~

Stiles makes it through his next two classes on sense memory and what little he remembers from his summer reading. His chemistry teacher — not Harris, he notes with triumph — asks him questions like he expects Stiles to know the answers. Stiles should know the answers, judging by the trophies on his desk and extensive notes he pulled from the bottom of his school bag, AP Physics, Drama, plans for some sort of telescope to use during the lunar eclipse.

His memories are confined to his life before he woke up – twelve years of friendship with Scott, eight years of pining after Lydia, months of being chased by the supernatural and turning every corner expecting something to be lying in wait, months of alliances and uneasy friendships forged through violence and loss. He has no memories from this life because he hasn’t lived it – he’s walking into familiar classrooms in someone else’s shoes. People look at him differently, now. When he makes a smartass comment in Music class, everyone laughs, someone – Limbrick, Stiles thinks – claps a hand on his shoulder and spends the rest of the class asking about his gym routine.

The feeling that he’s treading water continues during lunch break when he gets to his locker and finds Isaac leaning against it. “What do you want, Stilinski,” Isaac says, without looking up from his phone. He’s wearing his hair shorter than Stiles has ever seen it, dark smudges under his eyes, shrinking despite his height into the army surplus jacket bunched up around his shoulders.

“Um, trying to get to my locker.”

“Try the other side of the hall,” Isaac says, scoffs, and Stiles isn’t surprised to find no love lost. He’s still texting, treating Stiles like eye contact isn’t worth his time, but at least he’s not threating Stiles with his claws. They were never exactly friendly, but Stiles hasn’t been met by so much antagonism from people he knows well in a long time — except for Derek, and even then they were making progress.

“Right, because Scott and I aren’t friends, so our lockers aren’t together.”

Isaac looks up at him, smirking. “Lower your dosage, Stilinski.”

Stiles catches sight of Isaac’s face, the discoloured skin and swollen apple of his cheekbone. His bruises look like watercolour splashed across papyrus. His smirk turns vicious, like he thinks he’s more dangerous than he is. Surviving can damage a person, as well as change them.

“Right, well, if you see Derek, tell him I need to talk to him.”

Isaac expression sharpens, confused. “I don’t know any Derek.”

A hand clamps down on Stiles’s shoulder before he can be too disappointed, startling him out of his tête-à-tête with Isaac. Stiles looks down and is entirely unsurprised to find Jackson attached to it.

“Oh my god, Jackson, what do you want?”

Jackson’s hand tightens, what might be considered a friendly gesture for him. “Relax, Stilinski, that’s no way to talk to your new best friend.” He throws a sneer Isaac’s way, wrinkling his nose as Isaac bristles. “Nice coat. What is that, homeless chic?”

Isaac rolls his eyes without taking the bait, muttering, “asshole,” under his breath as he leaves.

“In no universe are we friends, Jackson.” Stiles steels himself for a verbal beat-down in case Jackson came armed, but what he gets instead is a mock-offended pout and a set of keys dangled in front of his face.

“Then I guess I did you that favour for nothing.” He jingles the keys when Stiles doesn’t take them. “My dad’s second Porsche. For your date tonight? Jesus, it’s a wonder you made it through infancy.”  
Stiles takes them, terrified and apprehensive at the thought of driving around in a Whittemore Porsche — once was enough — and what he did this time to get the opportunity. Stiles draws the line at murdering anyone again, at least anyone who doesn’t deserve it.

“Thanks, I guess. Um, mind reminding me why I need your dad’s Porsche?”

Jackson shakes his head, looking like he regrets so many things. “Consider the debt repaid.” He pauses, catches Stiles’s gaze for an uncomfortable amount of seconds, continues, “Scratch the paint job and you’re a dead man.”

“All right then.” Stiles jiggles the keys in his hand, feeling the weight of them. If the universe decides to gift him a horse, he’s not looking in any mouths. Except — “You said something about a date?”

“Just because Lydia’s happy — even if it’s not with me, and I mean, come on — doesn’t mean she’s not terrifying. I’m mainly doing this for her. And myself. So she doesn’t take her anger at whatever failure you’re going to no doubt inspire tonight on me, I can say I’ve tried.” Jackson delivers his speech with a lot of unnecessary and distracting eyebrow movements, and at the end Stiles is left dumbstruck, trying to piece it all together. “Speaking of—”

Stiles is already over people not finishing the crucial details in their sentences. He’s about to just leave when he’s enveloped by five-and-a-half feet of freshly-manicured strawberry blonde. His reflexes are sharp enough for him to return the hug without a functioning brain, but not to stop the kiss he doesn’t see coming, the press of Lydia’s lips to his, tasting of peach and mint.

“Woah, hey.” He pulls back quicker than he wants to, enjoying the slide of her fingers down his arm and jaw as she takes her hands away, steps back with a confused look.

“What? Do I have something in my teeth?”

“No, you — you’re perfect.”

“No need to seduce me, Stiles, we’re already dating.” She smiles up at him and something constricts in his chest. It’s been a long time since he’s seen her smile, and not like that since before she broke it off with Aiden, not even at the Spring Ball and especially not after, with the memory of Peter’s claws in her skin and Peter in her mind, everything that happened after, death following her around like a storm cloud.

Nothing about that life shows on her, and Stiles chest tightens further with how grateful he is she’s getting what she deserves. Running, fighting, holding out through the radio silence until the next round of violence isn’t living — it’s cancer, slow and debilitating and all-consuming, and it takes everything from you. Lydia could have gone her whole life without knowing the damaging truth. Derek was on his way to building something before the Alphas came through and took that away from him, too, took his pack and his Alpha status until he was left with nothing but the words he went back on anyway. The universe could do with throwing him a bone every once in a while, instead of more ways to hurt him, even if Derek can’t seem to help choosing the worst path. Stiles wonder if he’s doing the same thing by being here — running, or just setting himself up to fall.

Lydia squeezes his hand. “What time are you picking me up?”

“Um, well.” After this past year, even if not just because he’s the Sheriff’s son, Stiles should be better at lying on his feet. “I think I have lacrosse practice, and, um. Busy afternoon, so.”

Lydia pats his cheek, packing as much condescension as she can into the gesture. It still does things to him he’s embarrassed about, even if she said they were dating. “Pick me up at eight.” She starts to walk backwards, hair bouncing, heels clicking against the concrete hallway.

“It’s the big house on the hill, right? The one that looks like a frosted cake?”

Lydia purses her lips like she’s trying and failing not to be charmed by him. “Wear something nice. We only get one three month anniversary.”

“Unless the date is so bad you dump me. In three months we can have a do-over.”

She narrows her eyes. “If it goes that badly, we won’t be getting back together.” She blows him a kiss with her lips to her fingers, and Stiles shoves his hands under his armpits to stop from doing anything embarrassing like trying to catch it. He releases a breath after she leaves, throwing a look over her shoulder because she has to know the effect she has on him. Whatever he did to convince her to go out with him must’ve been phenomenal, better than anything he Scott could come up with, which was mostly along the lines of “just be yourself” and “don’t try to talk to her, man, it’ll just end in tears”, better ever than whatever Allison did to persuade Lydia into going to the dance with him.

But that was all in a different lifetime, and this one, after the constant surprises, is starting to feel too real for comfort.

~

Ten minutes after the last bell the halls are already deserted, doors to the after school club classrooms closed and the locker room spewing noise. Stiles is about to make a run for it when he catches sight of Allison near her locker, eyes darting around as she strides down the hall. He’s overwhelmed to see her, finally, because even if the world has turned apocalyptic and no one that’s supposed to be a werewolf is, he has complete faith in her family to still be batshit crazy.

He moves to call out but she leaves before he can get words out, slipping out the doors, almost losing her in the parking lot and the cacophony of blasted horns and bad drivers. She appears next to her own car, the same innocuous silver model Stiles has never bothered to learn, taking off before he can catch up. He spots his mother’s car, picturing the keys on her desk, his Jeep parked in their driveway and utterly useless to him now; a spark of inspiration has him reaching into his pocket for Jackson’s keys.

The Porsche is parked far enough away from the school entrance to be inconspicuous, a good move considering the looks Stiles gets as he starts it up. It’s nothing like Derek’s Camaro in terms of charm or personality, all squat metal blinding in the afternoon sun, but it’ll make do. The engine purrs under his hands like something out of the modern, sophisticated intellectual’s wet dream. He draws a few stares that feel way too good before the rush of satisfaction sours enough to focus on what he’s doing: stalking the town hunter’s daughter.

Who is also a hunter, Stiles reminds himself. He’s seen her with a bow, wielding the kind of precision that warrants her own superhero movie. He tails her as close as he can afford her and still loses her twice in a way that doesn’t feel too deliberate on her part, driving blindly into the preserve until it’s too late to go back without feeling like he’s giving up. The thrill of the cloak-and-dagger charade fades quickly and he parks the car a mile from the Hale property line, where the road seems to taper off, no sign of Allison or her car. He cuts the engine with a sigh, and then it’s quiet, his skin thrumming with anticipation.

The forest is still in a way that it hasn’t been before, not even when Jennifer came through, drawing power in a way that it’s still now recovering from — poisoned streams, too many animals to sustain the ecosystem or not enough, but at least there were animals; this forest is dead. The sky is busy with cloud cover and the threat of rain, but devoid of all other signs of life.

He doesn’t make it more than a couple of minutes of trampling over dead branches through the white noise atmosphere before Allison finds him. More accurately, she drops down on him from a tree, pinning him to the soil with a knife pressed to his throat.

“Hi, Allison,” he says, throat raw, swallowing nervously.

She’s wearing an odd combination of combat boots and wide-patterned stockings, like she’s going into battle, and wants to look good while she does. Her hair is close-cropped and boyish but uneven in parts. Stiles wonders about the knife at his neck and what else she used it for.

“Why are you here?”

“Out for a walk, you know, enjoying the view.”

She presses the knife down until it starts to sting.

“Okay, okay! I was looking for you. I need answers and so far you’re my only option.”

She squints her eyes, looking offended. “I’m not your sociology experiment, Stiles.”

“Oh, you know me, thank god. Are we friends?”

She loosens her tension on the knife to throw her head back in a laugh. Her hands are like ice, but her eyes are colder when she does that. “I don’t have friends.”

“So that’s a maybe?” Stiles swallows past the lump of fear, something that’s hard to do when there’s a sharp blade at his throat. 

Allison’s eyes narrow, sniffing him, nothing he’s not used to from the wolves, her mouth open to threaten him, probably, before something startles her. Stiles is still flat on his back when Allison swivels into a protective crouch, teeth bared and growling. For a split second her eyes flash yellow.

“Oh my god, you’re a w—”

She cuts him off with a hand over his mouth, hissing him into silence. “It’s him. Stiles, you have to go, he’s here.”

No sooner do the words leave her mouth before she’s up, hauling him to his feet with the claws biting into his arm. They start at a run, Allison graciously slowing down enough to drag him along with her, hissing for him to _keep up, keep quiet, it’s the Alpha, run, Stiles_.

They make it back to the road before the words sink in, and Stiles whirls on her despite the imminent danger and the fear in her eyes. “The Alpha — Derek Hale?”

Allison pushes him towards the car with a clawed hand, confusion clouding her expression. “Not Derek, Peter. I’ll hold him off, go.”

Stiles is torn between the urge to run and leaving Allison alone — she can hold her own but Peter is vicious, untrustworthy, Stiles has seen him almost rip Lydia apart just to prove a point, listened to how Derek described Jennifer’s body the night he buried her. If Allison’s not part of Peter’s pack, or if she is and Peter has an agenda, he might have already run into the other Alphas — if she poses anything of a threat he won’t hesitate to eradicate her. And that will be Stiles’s fault, too.

Allison disappears before Stiles can stop her. When he’s out of the preserve he cuts the engine, hangs his head against the steering wheel, trying not to imagine eyes watching him, red and glowing, teeth like knives sheathed behind a smile.

His watch reads just past four, too early for lacrosse practice to have finished. The sky darkens from a blanket white to a slate of grey, rain sliding down the windshield, as Stiles tries to spur himself into action. If Derek was there he’d already have some suicidal, work-in-progress plan for Stiles to refine into something they could pull off with minimal casualties, themselves included. They’d spent four months before the Alphas hatching plans to protect themselves that went nowhere, more often than not ended in dead leads and mounting frustration, piles of research on Derek’s kitchen table he’d sweep clean at the end of the day, options stretching so thin they were getting desperate. They wouldn’t see each other for days, weeks at a time, while Derek locked himself in his apartment or ran the town borders, until Stiles would show up with something else — a fresh coroner’s report citing an animal attack, a blurry cell-phone picture, word from a neighboring pack, never anything about Erica and Boyd — and Derek would nod, stand aside to let him in, every time.

The memories of Derek’s placid resolve throughout those months, the bitten-off sarcasm masking his frustration, the last reluctant smile he cracked at one of Stiles’s lame suggestions, causes an ache in Stiles’s chest he usually associates with family. If his dad was here, he’d say something equal parts devastating and reassuring in as few words as possible, something about how Stiles has to be the man of the family now, protect his mom, because it’s what a man does.

He doesn’t have the energy to cry in Jackson’s car for the next few hours, so he drives to keep his mind occupied, wipers on to wash away the film of rain. The cloud cover seems to have settled into his mind, a haze that separates his thoughts and actions, like living on autopilot after three days without sleep. Unsurprisingly, he ends up at the cemetery. His body moves without him telling it to, hands cutting the engine, opening the door, pulling his jacket around himself against the cold he doesn’t consciously feel. His feet take him through the rows of tidy graves and unremarkable headstones, pausing at one only among many, inconspicuous enough that if he blinks he might miss it. The grass has completely grown over, soft to the touch and wet from the rain. He crouches in front of it until the rain stops, water dripping from his hair into his eyes, clothes soaked through.

Stiles can handle being alone — he’s just not very good at it, always looking over his shoulder now, worried for his friends when he can’t see them. After a minute he starts to feel more alone than he ever has, staring at the plot of land his father is buried in. He knows, objectively, rationally, has accepted in the evolved part of his mind, that the universe isn’t a fair or unfair place: it just is. But he’s held his grudges deep for years now, comfortable in them as he is in his skin.

He feels eyes on him even before he looks up and finds Isaac watching him from across the cemetery. Stiles lifts his hands up in a wave he aborts almost immediately.

Time passes in a slow curl. He has half a hope that his mother will turn up, but it's five thirty before he gives up on it, sky clear and grass drying. Isaac tends the graves, disappears, comes back, moves closer in increments until they're within reasonable talking distance. 

"Sorry about Jackson being a dick," Stiles says. 

"Whatever," Isaac replies, quick enough that he was probably waiting for Stiles to say something. 

"All right, then. I take it we're not friends either."

"Do you mean before or after you ratted me out to my dad?" He's close enough for Stiles to make out the bruising on his face, a sight that has Stiles's stomach churning. 

"About the drugs? Why would I -- god, I'm so sorry, I don't know why I would do that."

Isaac's mouth is a tight line. "Because you're a self-entitled dick. But it helped that Jackson took it out on you and not me."

Stiles swallows, his voice steady when he asks, "He still hits you?"

Isaac narrows his eyes but doesn't flinch, leaning on the rake in his hands and looking like a photoshoot in waiting. "I'm really clumsy." 

"That's how you met Scott, right? Through Melissa at the hospital."

Irritation flashes over his expression before he reigns it back to indifference. "Scott told me you were like this. You used to be friends before his parents split?" Stiles nods. "He only mentioned it once, so I guess you weren't a very good friend."

"Yeah," Stiles says, "I guess not."

Isaac moves away and Stiles gets to his feet.

"What if — what if someone could make it right? If they had a chance to fix everything, or make it better."

Isaac rolls his eyes. "Someone like you, you mean?"

"Yeah. Someone like me."

"You probably can't tell, but I'm not waiting for some guy with a martyr complex to turn my life around."

Stiles scratches the back of his head. "Can you help me, at least?" Isaac gives him a look like he'd rather not, but he stays where he is. "Do you know where I can find Derek Hale?"

Isaac shrugs. "No. The only Hale I know is Cora. She's probably hanging out by the abandoned subway. The rumours are she lives there, like a hermit or something."

"Great, thanks. Hey, what about Erica?"

"Erica Reyes?" Isaac gives him a suspicious look, like Stiles is playing him. He points the handle of the rake towards a spot across the cemetery. "She had a seizure or something a couple months ago, a bad one. Everyone knew she was epileptic but no one thought she could die from it, you know?"

"And Boyd? Vernon Boyd."

"Dropped out last term. No one's heard from him."

"Were you guys — close?"

"You know, I'd love to play twenty questions, but I've got work to do, so if you don't mind."

Stiles nods, shoves his hands in his pockets to warm them up. He spares a last glance towards his father's headstone, feeling the weight of all the things he can't change and the resolution to try anyway warring with each other.

~

On the way home, Stiles shoots a text to his mom, apologising for not being at school, and one to Lydia, **can we reschedule for tmrw?** followed by a string of x's. Lydia responds almost immediately, but he doesn't look at it until he shuts his bedroom door behind him and his phone starts ringing.

"Lydia, hey — about tonight—"

His mom's voice cuts him off. "It's just me, sweetie. Do you have a date with Lydia?"

"Yeah, but I've got schoolwork, so. What's going on?"

"Were you waiting for me? I'm sorry, honey, I'm stuck at work under a mound of paperwork, I'm not going to make it home until later."

“Yeah, that’s ok, I — Jackson leant me his car. I'm home now." He throws the keys on his desk. "I can make some dinner?"

"Order some take out, you mean?" His mother's laugh rings through the line. "The coupons are on the fridge."

Stiles grins even though she can't see it. "Pepperoni and cheese?"

"Got it in one. I'll see you tonight. Don't study too hard."

He throws his phone down and starts up his laptop, rolls his shoulders and stretches his fingers for what's probably going to be a long and fruitless few hours. He searches through his files, feeling like he's snooping on his his own life, but finds mostly school work, the same early noughties pop punk he likes and white noise for studying, embarrassingly vanilla porn. Without werewolves to pique his interest he's pitifully bereft of weird and disturbing inclinations. 

His phone buzzes with a new message and a reminder of the first one he ignored. The old one reads **Dinner reservations don’t hold for mom troubles, so I hope you rebooked.**. He has a moment of panic wondering if he even made reservations in the first place, what Lydia might do if he didn’t, and reads the second message. 

**It’s a pity you can’t see me tonight. I was going to let you do that thing you always wanted to. Tomorrow night might not work for me.**

A vivid list of images spring to mind, too extensive to narrow down with so little information. It’s a monumental shame that he’s finally convinced someone — and not just someone, anyone, but Lydia — to indulge him in sex and his morals are getting in the way of making it a reality. It doesn’t seem fair to hold her to the standards of people they are in another lifetime.

He texts back **I guess I’ll have to try my luck tomorrow** , aiming for the right blend of non-committal and arrogant that Lydia apparently goes for. His phone calendar is bare of reservations or clues as to what he had planned except for the all day event for THREE MONTH ANNIVERSARY. He is, as always, the constant source of his own imminent downfall.

He spends the next few hours with his eyes boring into the computer screen until the information starts to bleed together, articles on spells, past life experiences, memories from a collective conscience, a fantasy turned reality, hex, curse, psychic disturbance, dimensional transference that have more to do with bringing things into your own dimension than anything useful. At the end of it he’s got nothing except a headache and pent up energy. He scrubs his hands over his face, too distracted by the throbbing behind his eyes to see the body climbing into his window.

“Did you find your answers?”

Stiles tries and fails not to fall out of his chair. “Oh, my god. Hi Allison. Long time, no threats against my life.”

She looks at him like she’s concerned about his mental health. Apart from the dried blood matted in her hair and her coat — utilitarian, black, buttoned up to her throat — she looks fine, if not a bit sadder than Stiles remembers, gaze hard like steel and ivory. “If you still have questions, I’m willing to help.” She has one leg still outside the window, ready to bolt.

“What’s the catch?”

Her nostrils flare and her eyes bore into him as she rises up to her full height. “You’re going to help me take down the Alpha. You’re going to help me catch him, and then I’m going to slit his throat.”

~

Allison slips out of Stiles’s window over an hour later, after she hears Claudia coming up the stairs to check on him. Her request is as simple as it had been when Derek asked it of Scott; difficult with Chris Argent dead, Scott out of commission, and Derek missing, for whatever good he’d do, even if it’s just one homicidal Alpha werewolf, and not five of them. Even if her request was simple, her answers were less so, and solutions sparse. She disappears into the shadows left by streetlamps as if she belongs there. 

When Stiles gets downstairs, Claudia is sitting on the couch with her feet on the coffee table, eyes closed to the background noise of the television, cold pizza in front of her and glass of wine in hand. “Hey, kiddo,” she says, without opening her eyes. Stiles always thought she had a sixth sense, an awareness of him and his moods that transcended anything he’s found with anyone else. The nickname loosens the ache in his chest he didn’t know he was holding onto, a feeling that this isn’t his to have. His skin still thrums with the need for information and answers but the scariest part is it’s getting easier to imagine himself in this reality, making a life for himself out of who he could be.

“Long day?” he asks as he settles down on the couch. 

His mother hums in agreement, catches something in his expression that stops whatever she was going to say. “You too, huh? Nice car, by the way.”

He smiles sheepishly. “Movie night?” Her expression softens then, accepting the smile he forces to reach his eyes.

Stiles picks one he hasn’t seen yet, despite Claudia’s pointed, “again?” She seems happy enough to sit through it, until she falls asleep halfway in, and Stiles picks the wine glass out of her hand, can’t be bothered to risk waking her when he reaches to put in on the coffee table, not with how comfortable her head feels on his shoulder.

~

Scott told him how it’d gone down that night, with him and Deucalion on one side of the line, Derek and Jennifer on the other, both sides scrabbling for purchase against the rushing tide of helplessness and anarchy. Scott had a plan, obviously, but if he’d shared it sooner Stiles could’ve warned him how bad it was. Siding with the enemy hadn’t exactly always worked in their favour, and there’s only so many times you can stand back and watch the carnage happen before you become accountable.

Stiles went back to the nemeton, after the dust had dissipated, for no other reason than to understand what was necessary -- to learn, maybe, from the extent of what they’d caused. He didn’t feel it yet, the black pit in his soul as Deaton described it, couldn’t decide if what he felt was a result of the sacrifice or lingering accumulation of everything else. 

Derek was already there. He held himself so still he looked like a gaslit painting, something to keep watch like the way Stiles always thought of him, deep deep down past the danger of attraction and the attraction to danger he’s never been able to shake — Derek silent and watchful, better at mediating than he ever was at action.

The nemeton was splattered with fresh blood but whatever body it came from was gone. Stiles watched his step as he walked to stand beside Derek, let the preternatural post-storm calm settle over them. 

“So, it’s over then,” Stiles said, voice raw. “Another crisis averted.”

“Seems like it,” Derek said. His hands were dirty, his face too, a swipe of mud coating his chin, beads of sweat on his upper lip.

Stiles swallowed past the lump of dust in his throat. “What now, then? Sit around and wait for the next big bad to blow into town?”

“You never know,” Derek said, drily, a hint of humour in his tone, “it could be over.”

“Yeah, totally, we’ll just live out the rest of our lives without anything trying to kill us. Graduate, go to college, tell our grandkids war stories when we’re old and brittle.”

He must’ve sounded more bitter than he could help, because Derek turned to him, all stoic suffering, and asked, “You don’t want that?” like he was trying to understand and coming up short.

Stiles was surprised Derek did, but he should’ve stopped being surprised by Derek a long time ago. “I mean, sure, yeah I want that. I’m just not delusional enough to think this town is going to leave us whole.”

“You could leave,” Derek suggested, sincere enough that he might’ve actually believed it. “Get a place in a college out of state. Get a job, somewhere. It’s what other people do.” Other, undamaged people, he didn’t add.

Stiles dragged the toe of his shoe through the dirt. “I have friends here, Derek, family. As much as it pains me to admit right now, after this latest near-death experience, Beacon Hills is my home. I’ve got too much riding on this place to leave now.” He’d thought about it, moving away after graduation, the college applications cluttering a drawer in his desk where his father couldn’t see them, where Scott couldn’t ask questions. Even after so much unnecessary bloodshed he couldn’t bring himself to think seriously about it, even if everything was over and everyone was safe. He still had a job to do.

Derek didn’t say anything. He could’ve been thinking Stiles’s words through or just sick of the conversation, Stiles couldn’t tell. After a minute, he continued, “You do, too, you know. Have friends here. Just because you’ve lost a lot doesn’t mean you don’t have anything.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them, saying so much and risking giving too much away, but Derek didn’t call him out on his bullshit. For all the months they’d been helping each other, digging their way into each others’ lives mostly by chance, Stiles had only ever skirted around what he wanted to say, or avoided it entirely. In his head it sounded like _you don’t have to be alone anymore_ or _I want you like the primal night I could touch with my senses_ except with a lot more swearing, but his mouth was full of dust and the exhaustion of fighting was starting to get to him. He counted on a chance to say it, eventually, a year down the track when Derek would find the brochures and Stiles would shrug at Derek’s “you’re choosing to stay,” and answer, “It’s not much of a choice.”  
He counted on Derek still being there, too.

Derek’s murmured, “thanks,” was quiet enough for Stiles to ignore it, if he wanted, instead of letting it echo into the silence still ringing in his ears long after the moon disappeared into the skyline.

~

The animal clinic is tucked away in the same corner of town, looking about as inconspicuous as secret werewolf hospital-slash-druid lair can be. The bell jingles when Stiles opens the door, and he’s blasted with air-conditioning that does nothing to hide the stale, musty smell of caged animals. The front part of the clinic is empty, but he can hear muffled voices through the door to the back.

“Dr Deaton?” he calls. His fingers splay against the ashwood counter. 

The conversation drops and Deaton steps into the main room, smiling that infuriating almost-smile and looking, as always, pleasantly surprised. “Hello, Mr Stilinski. Can I help you with something?”

Stiles steels himself, wary of the other voice he heard. “I hear you know some things.”

“And what might they be?” He stiffens in a way that would go unnoticed by eyes less attuned than his.

Stiles is stopped from answering by the door opening again, and this time Scott steps through. “Scott — hey, you’re still — I didn’t know you worked here.” Scott gives him a look like he doesn’t give a shit what Stiles knows.

Deaton offers a proud smile. “Mr McCall has been helping as part of his rehabilitation.”

“I guess those animal cages don’t clean themselves,” Stiles says, immediately regretting it. Unfortunately, no freak accidents or murderous werewolves interrupt his social failure, and Scott continues glaring. He shoulders his bag, hair falling into his eyes and the shadows under them, the picture of disaffected youth.

“I gotta go,” he says to Deaton, barely more than a mumble, almost shoulder checks Stiles on the way out. Stiles wishes he would, some brief moment of outright antagonism to distract him from how much he misses Scott, some proof that they’re something to each other, that Stiles means enough to him to get under his skin. He’ll pretty much take whichever Scott the universe gives him, even this one.

“Shouldn’t you be heading to school, too, Mr Stilinski?”

“I know about werewolves,” Stiles blurts. “The Alpha, hunters, emissaries, all of it.”

Deaton raises an eyebrow in contemplation. “I think we’d better step into my office.”

~

“An alternate dimension sounds — not impossible, but at the very least unlikely.”

“Impossible was pretty much disputed when werewolves rolled into town.” Stiles fiddles with the bobblehead on Deaton’s desk, a cartoonish Dachshund with a gold collar, oversized eyes, and felt coat. Stiles had a dog like that when he was a kid, that used to follow his mom everywhere and died a week after she did. “So, what could make it likely.”

“Regret,” Deaton says simply. “Has anything dramatic changed since you’ve been here in this timeline?”

Stiles doesn’t know where to begin. “Everything.” Deaton nods in understanding and glances down to where Stiles is twisting the bobblehead in his hands. “I can pinpoint where the timelines — this one, and, um — diverge, a couple of events.”

“Crossroads,” Deaton supplies. So far he’s been as helpful as ever.

“Yes, but also. There are some things that are different, or — opposite to what I know.”

“Can you tell me what the catalysts are for the crossroads to diverge from the path in your dimension?”

Stiles takes a breath and rattles off the information like a shopping list — how Allison got bitten because Stiles and Scott weren’t friends, they weren’t in the woods that night, and she was; how Peter forced Allison to murder the members of her family he didn’t want to kill himself; that Cora came back for Laura instead of Derek, how Laura died anyway, and now Derek’s missing. “The rest of it, though, the stuff that’s opposite — my dad dying instead of my mom, Scott living with his dad — it’s changed some things but not others. It’s like rearranging the furniture on the Titanic. We’ve still gotta hit the iceberg.”

Deaton nods thoughtfully and plucks the bobblehead off the desk, out of Stiles’s reach. “What do you think could’ve prompted this situation?”

Stiles runs a hand through his scalp, tugs at his hair. “I don’t know, that’s why I came to you. This isn’t a problem I’ve come across before. You’re pretty much our Obi Wan. Usually you have all the answers. Some of the time.”

“Okay then, tell me the events leading up to you coming here.”

“I just woke up? I fell asleep at Derek’s loft, we kind of turned it into our base camp. Before that, though, we were recuperating from another fight with those twin idiots over who the real Alpha of Beacon Hills is.”

Deaton motions with his hand for Stiles to continue, adds, “Anything more leaning towards the supernatural?”

“Aside from the coven of witches that moved into the Hale house?” Stiles says. Deaton narrows his eyes. “No, nothing has happened since Jennifer left, really. No one has broke into Derek’s loft since we set up the wards, and — oh.”

Deaton leans forward in his chair. “Yes, ‘oh’.” He pushes a pen and pad of paper across the desk. “I’m going to need you to write those wards down for me.”

To bide time while his embarrassment fades, Stiles draws up a map of the loft and marks all the wards in their places. Deaton scans the shelves, pulling out tomes with familiar inscriptions to check against Stiles's drawing. 

"Am I to assume I helped you with these and you drew them incorrectly anyway?"

Stiles flushes. "You let me borrow some books and I kind of — took the initiative."

Deaton holds them up. "I let you borrow these centuries old Egyptian manuscripts?"

"Would you believe that the you I know is a really trusting guy?"

Deaton levels him with a stare. "No." 

"Fine, I took them from your office when you weren't looking, obviously I feel terrible and I'll return them as soon as I'm, you know."

"You might want to fix the wards first. This one," he points out one that looks like a squiggle and a bird's head, "means 'home', but used in conjunction with this one, 'beginning', it creates a connection more than just protection. That being said, it's not enough to create a rift into another reality."

"So, that was just the powder? It still needs a spark?"

"Sometimes," Deaton says, "intent is spark enough."

Stiles lets out a sigh. "Great, I willed myself into a dimension where every day is Opposite Day. And Peter Hale still isn't dead."

"Are you close with the Hales?"

"Some of them, why? Don't tell me this whole situation is somehow Derek's fault, too. If you do, I can't promise not to laugh."

"You did mention that he'd left. Severing the pack bloodline to the town is bound to cause some interference. Or," Deaton pauses, scanning Stiles's face while Stiles jiggles his leg up and down, "emotional dissonance."

Stiles's knee jerk reaction is to argue, tightly wound with things he hasn't fully considered yet, before he collects himself. "Okay, no. Also: Derek isn't an Alpha in my timeline, and he isn't even here in this one. How can he be the problem if he's not even here to be the problem? If we needed him back so badly, it would make more sense to send me to a place he actually is."

Stiles pushes the sketch away, too exhausted to look at it and not see his footsteps across it, Boyd soaking wet and bleeding with Derek's claw marks in his chest, the premature smell of death and fear as Derek sat by Cora's unconscious body, the uncertainty in Derek's eyes — doubt in Stiles and Scott, still clinging to the belief that his actions didn't always end in failure until the mistletoe settled. 

All those months they were building something, getting their feet under them, for Derek to walk away, almost two years left on the lease and most of it paid. If he wasn't going to use it, if he wasn't sleeping in a bed that was more than mattresses piled on a railcar floor, enjoying the third storey view and a quiet place to breathe, then someone should be. 

Deaton piles more books on his desk. “It's easy to imagine why he'd want to stay away. When something like the Hale fire happens, it takes more than just an emotional and physical toll. Putting aside the fact that most of his family died here, the arson and the murder is enough to taint the very ground and air, creating a vacuum of negative energy that certain people are susceptible to."

"Yeah, werewolves, I got it."

"Emissaries, too," Deaton adds. "These woods are older than you can imagine, Mr Stilinski, and they have memories as well."

"Then the nemeton must be like the black hole centre of it all."

Deaton stills where he's leaning over the sketch, for the first time looking genuinely surprised and concerned. "How do you know about the nemeton?"

"Um, funny story. Allison, Scott, and I kind of did this spell — your idea, by the way — to find the nemeton, and as a result I guess we died, or something."

"That's — that was a very unwise thing to do. Drawing power from the nemeton, its—"

"Enough to bring me here," Stiles finishes. 

Deaton nods. "Among other things." He pulls together his notes and the books Stiles took the wards from, arranging them neatly in a pile. "Have you been experiencing any loss of consciousness or strange impulses?"

Stiles chews on his thumbnail. "I'm fine."

After a moment, Deaton says, “I think I can help you with this. I know a spell that brings things from other dimensions, perhaps we can reverse it using your practitioning. It will take some time.” He sounds just this side of apologetic, but it’s still the best news Stiles has heard all day. Deaton ushers him to the door. “Come by tomorrow. I should have something by then.”

Stiles wanders outside feeling lighter, the haze in his head lifting as he breathes fresh air. He doesn’t make it three steps before the noise reaches him, squealing tires and an engine purr that brings with it semi-automatic gunfire, the musk of worn leather, fresh blood and fear. His heart races even as his upper brain function tells him otherwise, that it’s not possible, that just because Stiles fell asleep in his loft once or twice and spent the last hour talking about him to Dr Werewolf doesn’t mean Derek is just going to turn up.

He’s right, four seconds later, when the Camaro screeches to a halt and Cora leans out the window. She has the commanding grace of every high school queen bee, shouting, “Get in. We’re going for a drive.”

~

Stiles still has reservations about being trapped in a small car with a pissed off werewolf, no matter how many times it’s happened before.

Cora doesn’t waste time with pleasantries. “How do you know my brother?”

“As cliche as it sounds, you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Considering Derek has been dead for six and a half years and you’re carrying his scent around, it better be a good story.” She has her foot practically to the floor, speeding through back roads as they circle the town, Stiles’s stomach lurching with each twist.

“He didn’t make it out of the fire?” Cora’s driving is only one reason he might be sick.

“What do you know about it?”

“That Kate Argent tricked Derek, set the house on fire, but he — he was supposed to get out, he should’ve have—”

“Same as everyone else,” Cora snaps, teeth gritted and hand white-knuckled on the gear shift. “No one was supposed to die, not because of that hunter bitch. Me and my sister, we were the only ones to get out.”

“And Peter,” Stiles adds. “And then Peter killed Laura, didn’t he, and you came back to find her.”

“Our family is about as dysfunctional as it gets.” She pulls the car to a stop and Stiles jolts against the dashboard, thankful for the seatbelt that cuts into his chest to stop him flying into the windshield. “Let’s take a walk.” They’re parked on the road leading to the preserve, close to where Stiles was the day before. It isn’t any less creepy, silence thick in the air like a shroud. Their footsteps cut through the forest as they crunch dead leaves and branches, making their way further into the woods.

“Allison said you’re living with her, at the Argent house.”

Cora shrugs. She treads lightly and easily, and Stiles pushes himself to keep up. “It seemed easiest. I haven’t got anywhere else, no family to take me in. I was living out of Laura’s car when I found it here, but then Allison found me, after she was bitten.”

“How does that work? Are you guys, like — siblings now?”

Cora smirks at him, flashes him her teeth. “Do you want to find out?”

A shiver runs down Stiles’s spine at the thought, Peter’s teeth cartoonishly long and pressing into the skin of his wrist. “I’m good, thanks. I wouldn’t want to disrupt the dynamic of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Lycanthropes.” He has a moment of panic over where she’s leading him, if it’s to Peter, if after his and Allison’s heart to heart she and Cora labelled him untrustworthy. 

Just as Stiles feels like he’s going to faint from exertion, they come to the heart of the forest, the clearing in which the Hale house sits, as dilapidated as ever.

“Not that I’m not enjoying this little pow-wow, but is there a reason you brought me out here?”

“I just want to know what you know.” She’s not even out of breath, or red in the face like Stiles probably is. 

“And you’re trying to scare me into telling you?”

“If I wanted to, I could just beat it out of you.”

“Well, that’s the Hale diplomacy I’ve come to love and cherish.” He pauses before continuing, “If you want Peter dead, I’m willing to help.”

“I want my brother back. Can you help with that?”

She’s angry, defiant, hair shining gold and red in the light that trickles through the canopy. Stiles can feel the hurt radiating off her, the chip on her shoulder enough to carry the world. Inexplicably, Stiles misses Derek, the solid weight of him Stiles could bounce off, the broken off edges of him that gradually dulled into something approachable, friendly almost.

Cora makes a frustrated noise. “You smell so sad, quit it.”

Stiles rolls his eyes but doesn’t rise to the bait. “How do you even know what Derek smells like, if you haven’t seen him since the fire?”

“I didn’t. I’d forgotten it until you turned up, dragging his scent all over town like it was a game, like he was laughing at me from his grave. Everything of his burned in the fire.” She eyes Stiles’s hoodie like she’s about to rip it off him. 

“Are you sure he’s really dead, then? I mean,” he adds, at the suspicion on her face, “sometimes you think you know something, a person, and then you find out they were hiding a part of themselves and you just couldn’t see it.”

“You sound like Deaton.” Cora wrinkles her nose. “And this was a complete waste of time. If you’re not going to tell me anything you should just stay out of it.”

“You’re not going to threaten me again? Take me to see your big, bad uncle?”

Cora flashes her teeth again in a feral grin. “First date is too early to introduce the relatives.”

She leads him back to the Camaro, once he’s had more than he can take of the forest, the claustrophobic atmosphere like a vice around his chest. It’s a good interrogation technique, but Cora’s detached interest seems to extend only as far as her attention span. He’s left to struggle behind as she clears through the trees, tripping over branches and his own feet.

The drive back the animal clinic is silent save for the noise of the car, Stiles breathing harshly for the entire four minutes it takes to get across town. Every Hale he’s met seems to have a death wish, and Cora isn’t the exception.

She idles the engine when he gets out, sizing him up through the window. “If you really want to help us, get ready. We’ll be in touch.” She takes off with one last, unnecessary roar, leaving Stiles behind to wonder how he’s gotten so used to watching people leave.

~

By the time he’s home he’s about ready to collapse in bed with a bag of cheetos and Netflix, head pounding with too much information and not enough solutions, his whole body turned into one big muscle cramp. He doesn’t make it to the stairs before he’s stopped by the sight of mother at the kitchen table, a cloud of smoke drifting from the cigarette in her hand as she waits expectantly.

“You weren’t at school today,” she says, calmly tapping her cigarette against the lip of a coffee mug. Stiles swallows the taste of smoke in his mouth. “Care to tell me why?”

“It’s kind of a long story,” he says, to stall for time.

“I took the afternoon off work.”

Stiles fidgets in the doorway, feeling a dozen implausible stories well up on his tongue, followed by the sickening feeling of having to lie to his mother. He’s saved from forcing the words out when she continues, “You and Lydia are two of the smartest students in your grade, and you still didn’t think I’d figure out you both weren’t at school?”

“It was my idea,” Stiles blurts. “Last night was — we were supposed to go out, but I cancelled, so.”

“So you thought you’d just, what?” She takes another draw. “You know how this reflects on me, as well as your grades.”

“I know, mom. I’m sorry.”

“Is this because of yesterday? I know your father’s death has been hard on you, but you can’t keep using it as an excuse, or using it against me.”

The words squeeze the vice around his chest.

“I don’t think you know how much it hurts me when you do that, when you say—” She cuts herself off, a hand pressed to her temple, and Stiles is glad she doesn’t finish the sentence. “I loved him, Stiles, you know that. But our marriage was over long before he died, when he started to drink himself to sleep because of his job. I feel guilty every day because of what happened to him, but it wasn’t my fault.” She pauses, smoke trailing from the cigarette in her hand as the flame dies down. “I see so much of him in you. He made his mistakes, and one of them was not living to see how they played out.”

Claudia’s expression isn’t angry. Stiles has faced his father’s anger before and it was always like a light switch moment for a truth he wasn’t ready to face until it flicked. His mother’s disappointment hurts more because there’s nothing he can do — not him, the panic-riddled virginal werewolf-bait with a death wish; it hurts because it could so easily be him, it is him, the him without Scott as his conscience, wtihout Allison and Derek and earning Lydia’s friendship to balance him out.

His life seems to be a series of lessons he’s tripping into, like the Ghost of Christmas Present is going to arrive in a puff of smoke and lead him to his next revelation. His mother’s words twist in his chest, eyes stringing, emotions splayed out and raw as if he’s being ripped open.

He walks over to where Claudia holds her hand over her eyes, rubbing her temples with her fingers, and takes her other hand. “I’m sorry, mom,” he repeats, the word still vulnerable and new in his mouth, “I don’t — I know it’s not your fault.”

She squeezes his fingers, cigarette hissing as she drops it into her mug. “He would’ve been so proud.” 

Stiles nods, holds on for as long as he allows himself before he can’t anymore, and retreats up the stairs, chest wound tight, legs giving out as soon as he closes his bedroom door.

~

Lydia makes him wait almost ten minutes, car parked outside her mansion walls, while she finishes “getting ready”. It’s probably a ruse, to make her entrance all the more dramatic; at least her penchant for flair hasn’t changed. He spends the whole time second-guessing his decision to go through with the date, feeling like a fraud in someone else’s car, wearing someone else’s clothes, taking out someone else’s girlfriend. The mound of research he compiled in the last few hours wasn’t enough to give him any real answers, the only evidence he managed to scrape together was a list of recorded deaths for Beacon Hills, 11 for April 24th 2005, Derek Hale’s name included. It doesn’t mean much to Stiles’s unwavering belief that something else is going on, that if his mom and his could switch places in this universe, Cora and Derek could, too. Derek could still be alive, living underground and presumed dead the way Cora did.

Stiles is still over-analysing when Lydia appears at the head of the stairs as if plucked from his subconscious, shrouded in a dress so pale her hair burns redder in contrast. Her heels click against the steps as she comes toward him, and all of her just seems to — float, hair loose and bouncing, holding herself poised and waiting for confirmation of her devastating effect on the world. He misses her, the Lydia he knows that’s buried beneath machinations of beauty ideals, but he loved her for years before he knew any better.

She twirls slightly until the hem of her dress picks up. “Well?”

“I thought I said to dress casual,” he says, tone light despite his heart beating like a wild animal in his chest. He’s never not going to find her beautiful.

She looks him up and down, eyebrow cocked. “I’m not a casual girl, Stiles.”

She takes his arm and lets him lead her to the car, open and close the door for her like the depiction of outdated chivalry. She checks her make-up as he drives, a completely unnecessary action that only serves to distract him from the road to the she drags a fingertip across the edge of her bottom lip, his head swimming. One day Stiles is going to be in a relationship that doesn’t make him feel like a creep, and he hopes it’s soon.

“So, uh, I know you were expecting the whole candlelight dinner, Mariachi band, and 5-Star restaurant,” She looks at him like he’s an idiot to assume anything, which is a look he’s used to, “but I had something else in mind.”

She glances to the basket wedged between their seats, covered by a lump of plaid blanket. “If the picnic blanket is your way of asking for alfresco sex, you’re going to be severely disappointed.”

“Still romantic, though, right?” He keeps his tone light, teasing, forces a smile that’s easier with the way Lydia side-eyes him. 

“So is a candlelit dinner.”

The drive to the ridge is short but Stiles takes it slow, eyes barely seeing where he’s going, focused on the anticipation of where the night will go, how many more nights he’ll spend trying not to become someone else. It’s almost too easy, Lydia comfortably quiet in the passenger seat when they stop like she’s waiting for him to make a move. From up here, the whole town is nothing more than a sprinkling of lights and shoebox houses, the air cool and crisp through Stiles’s open window. They’re on the outskirts of the forest, close enough that Stiles doesn’t feel like he’s going to jump out of his skin, but far enough that his head is clear, that he can appreciate it in some _the woods are lovely dark and deep_ kind of way.

It’s nice, even if the last memory Stiles has of it is leaving Jackson handcuffed in a police van after kidnapping him. 

Lydia doesn’t look impressed. “Is this it?”

“Wait for it.” With a push of a button, the roof lifts off and settles back, leaving them exposed to the moonlight, the untouchable veneer of stars. “There we go.” He busies himself with the picnic basket, pulls out two fun-sized bottles of sparkling champagne and whatever was edible in his cupboard. Luckily, his mom has a taste for soft cheeses.

“I guess it’s not so bad.” Lydia purses her lips, trying to hide a smile.

“So, um, you weren’t at school today.” 

He holds out a cracker and cheese that she takes with a shrug. “Something happened.”

“Something like...?” She rolls her eyes like she’s bored of the conversation, acting how she used to before she trusted him. It tests his patience and willingness to be a good friend, despite his crippling loyalty. “Lydia, just tell me.”

“My mom hit someone with her car.”

“Oh, shit, really? Were they ok?”

She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. “He was fine, he just. I mean, she was doing 40 and he stepped right out in front of us. When we stopped he got up and walked away, like nothing happened.” She shakes her head as though trying to clear the memory from it. “He looked right at me, and his eyes were cold. For a second I could swear they looked—”

Stiles waits a beat for her to finish. “What?”

“They flashed bright red.”

Stiles feels his heart beat in his throat.

Lydia bites her lip. “But that’s impossible, right?”

Stiles nods automatically, clenching his jaw to stop the panic showing on his face. “Right, definitely crazy.” He pauses, takes a breath. “Lydia, have you heard anyone — around town, at school, or — talking about werewolves?”

She has enough time to turn a skeptical glare his way before a howl rips through the woods, startling them both. His hand turns the key in the ignition before his brain even registers the movement, body flooding with adrenaline and fear. 

“What was that?” Lydia’s voice edges towards panic. “Was that a wolf?”

“I’ll explain when we’re out of here.” The tires spin in the dirt for a few precious seconds before the car takes off, all that showmanship paying off as they speed through the forest. Lydia’s hair trails behind her as she glances back, and Stiles has just enough forethought to lift the roof back up. The further they drive the more Stiles’s chest tightens, the instinct to protect Lydia warring with the need to go back. His common sense keeps his foot on the gas and the tires straight, only a few hundred yards from the road.

A shadow flits in front of headlights and Stiles jerks the wheel, slows down to take a corner. A body drops onto the hood of the car and Stiles swerves again, slams on the brakes, inches from colliding with a tree.

Peter unfurls himself, the same black leather trenchcoat hanging low, crouched on his hindquarters to peer in through the windshield. Peter’s teeth are daggers, his smile a vicious thing that sends a cold chill down Stiles’s spine, more than the thought of what Jackson will do once he sees the damage done to the hood.

“You must be Stiles,” Peter says, his voice a muffled purr through the glass. “Mind if I have a word?”

Stiles doesn’t feel Lydia’s fingers digging into his arm until she pulls him closer, eyes wide, lips parted on a gasp. “That’s him, that’s the man we hit.”

He nods. “I know. Just — stay here, I’ll handle it.” When he gets out of the car, Peter is already standing beside it, stalking closer with a predatory snarl until Stiles is backed up against the door. He has to fight the urge to offer submission or lash out with Peter so close and reeking of stale dirt, the kind of scent that clings to the fibre of skin after everything has burned away. “So, you got me out here,” he says, with a sense of bravado he doesn’t feel, “what’s the plan now?”

Peter cocks his head, nostrils flared. “Is polite conversation out of the question? There’s no need to be so afraid.” He punctuates it with a sniff.

“So the intimidation tactics are for your own benefit then? Could’ve fooled me.”

“Mm, I see why Cora was so interested. You’re not exactly new to things, are you, Stiles? No, I can sense that about you. Smell it on you. The boy who runs with wolves.”

Stiles resists the urge to roll his eyes. “You haven’t changed. From what Cora’s told me,” he covers, “you’ve always been a narcissistic piece of work.”

Peter makes a noise that seems to come from his throat. “I’m afraid any grasp my niece had on reality was taken from her by the fire. She’s a little bit — damaged.”

“That makes both of you, then.”

Peter laughs, a high, nasally sound that’s as sincere as it is reassuring. “Tell me, is it me you’re after? Hoping to stake an Alpha’s head on a spike? I don’t hear any hunters waiting in the shadows. You must be out of your depth.”

“Murder is a little dramatic for my taste,” Stiles says. He can feel the cooling metal of the car at his back, the steady weight of it, keys in the ignition for Lydia to get away, at least.

“You could try,” Peter offers. “Alas, with the hunter population dwindled down to nothing, there’ll be no one to help you, no one to hear you scream.” He rattles off cliches with infra-red precision, barely-veiled threats that remind Stiles more of the Peter whose throat Derek ripped out than one he should be afraid of. “You’re not even armed. How foolish, coming into my woods and hoping to walk out unscathed.” Stiles has to agree with him. He hasn’t moved, still inches away and tracking Stiles’s movements, hands bunching in his pockets, Peter’s gaze moving to the soft skin of his neck where his pulse beats.

“If I wanted you dead I’d have to get in line. But now that you brought it up, what’s your angle?”

“Me?” Peter asks, all feigned innocence. “Who says I want anything? The Argents paid their price. Allison saw to that, with a little persuasion, of course.”

Stiles heard the story from Allison herself, Peter’s influence tainting her consent, corrupting her until all she saw were threats to remove, listened to her explain so calmly that none of them were innocent, in the end, prompting Stiles to wonder what damage Peter had done to her to finish the job Gerard couldn’t.

“So that’s it — you’re just going to keep biting lost teenagers? I heard about your recent work, by the way. Didn’t turn out so well, since they’re all dead.”

“Why, Stiles, do I detect a little jealousy?”

Stiles keeps his mouth shut, trying to focus on the tick of the engine cooling and not on Peter’s breath, the spilling miasma leeching off of him.

Peter takes another sniff. “No, you don’t want it, do you. You’re scared of it, of what it would do to you. You prefer the thrill of the hunt, but not the hunt itself. You won’t take the bite, at least not from me. I hope my dear nephew hasn’t scared you off for good.”

Stiles’s heart rate kicks up in surprise, stepping forward despite the way Peter’s gaze turns hungry. “Derek? What do you —bDerek’s alive?”

“Don’t play dumb, Stiles. You stink of him, like he’s marked you, in that gauche, socially outdated way of his. He never was very progressive, as it turns out.”

Stiles breathes evenly, hoping Peter mistakes his confusion for surprise at having been found out.

“Although, how he’s managed to keep you a secret from me, well. Maybe I give him too little credit.”

“Whatever you’re going to do to him—”

“Relax, would you?” Peter scoffs and even makes that simple action seem inhuman. “Werewolves heal. You don’t really think I’d kill my own nephew for lying to me, plotting against me, dragging a human into a family matter?” He places enough emphasis on the words to make it clear that yes, he would, that’s exactly something he’d do.

Stiles is interrupted before he can mention Laura’s name by another howl, weaker this time, more sorrowful than Peter’s territorial roar, but no less threatening.

Peter rolls his eyes, steps away until Stiles can breath again. “I guess killing you would be too easy. Until next time.”

Stiles waits until the shadows swallow him before getting back in the car. He turns to Lydia, who’s curled into herself against the door, almost reaching out before he registers the tear tracks on her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” he says, at a loss. “Is — are you okay?”

She doesn’t look at him, only closes her eyes, says, “Take me home,” in a voice smaller than a whisper.

Stiles focuses on watching the forest floor turn into bitumen to keep himself from throwing up, doesn’t register where he’s going beyond the tug in his chest and vague shapes until they’re outside Lydia’s house and she’s already out the door without sparing him another glance.

Stiles leaves the Porsche parked on the side of the road with the keys in the ignition and walks the extra fifteen blocks home. He’s not surprised to find Cora in his bedroom, lounging in his desk chair with her feet on his bed, cleaning her claws the way Lydia cleans her nails, in case he ever forgot what they look like.

“Allison lured him away. She says to tell you you’re welcome, and not to act like an idiot by going into the forest alone smelling like another werewolf. I’m embellishing, but that’s the gist of it.”

Stiles stands in the doorway, whole body feeling numb despite how no one’s died right in front of him in weeks. “I’m in.” Cora raises an eyebrow. “The whole killing Peter plan, I’m up for it. But first we have to find your brother.”

~

Stiles wakes feeling an adrenaline hangover, which has less to do with facing Peter than the forty-five minutes it took to convince Cora not to go stumbling around in the dark looking for Derek, especially if Peter was still out there. Stiles has already learned that lesson.

He's lying half off the bed and it's easy enough to roll the rest of the way onto the floor. Cora's slumped in the chair, head down and hair falling over her face, in the same position Stiles woke up to hours earlier when he mistook the noises she made in her sleep for a warning. He gets a minute to shake the sleep from his head before Cora jolts awake with a gasp. 

"Time s'it?" 

Stiles glances around. "Day time." 

"All right, let's go." She's already up, stretching her arms across her chest like she's loosening up for a fight. 

A knock on the door interrupts the attempt Stiles doesn't make to move, and his mom pushes her head in. 

"Good, you're awake. I'm driving you to school in fifteen minutes." She turns to Cora with a pleasant smile. "Hello, I'm Claudia."

Cora nods hello, eyes flitting to Stiles as he levers himself up off the floor. He feels exposed in just his boxers and t-shirt, resists the urge to cover himself. 

"Are you staying for breakfast?" Claudia asks. 

"I was just leaving." Cora pulls on her jacket in one practised movement, turns back to Stiles with, "I'll meet you back at school," adding, "Nice to meet you, Claudia," and then she's gone. She uses the door this time, and Stiles is thankful for small mercies. Even if his dad is aware now, Stiles still reverts back to familiar patterns of keeping secrets, breath catching at the expectation his friends are going to do something weird by human standards.

"We were just, um—"

"Fifteen minutes," Claudia repeats. "Breakfast is downstairs." She gives him a warning look before she closes the door behind her. 

He grabs his hoodie and a pair of jeans, manages to skull a mug of lukewarm coffee and make it to the car as his mom locks the door. She doesn't lecture him on the way like she looks like she wants to, her mouth a tight line, eyes clouded with an expression that betrays her disappointment. He feels bad enough already, the drive too short for all the things he wants to say, and then they're at school. 

He hugs her before she heads to her office, pressing in close to murmur, "I love you, mom," feeling like it's the last chance he'll get.

She offers a smile, answers, "You too, kiddo," and brushes his hair behind his ear, a quick touch that's gone before he can savour it. As soon as he's lost sight of her the Camaro pulls up next to him, and Cora beeps to get his attention. Any sweetness and light she entertained that morning is gone, replaced by a determined slant to her mouth and a steel-edged gaze. 

"Where are we going?" She bristles with energy, like if Stiles touched her he'd get zapped. It's hard to not get caught up in it, to keep his emotions under control enough to think clearly. 

"The preserve, where Scott and I first—" He cuts himself off. 

Cora rolls her eyes. "I was literally raised in those woods. If that's where Peter's keeping Derek, I'd have found him by now."

"But you've never been able to find the nemeton, have you? Don't be too hard on yourself, I almost had to die to find it."

Cora squares her shoulders. "Okay." She puts her foot to the floor, swerving through the parking lot as Stiles braces himself. 

"Peter said something last night."

Cora sniffs, an entirely human gesture. "He offer you the bite?"

"Once or twice. He said something about marking? What did he mean by that?"

"Sometimes werewolves they — it's like a pack thing. An Alpha's bite marks their beta as pack." She glances at him from the corner of her eyes. "Human, too, but that's more to do with scent and contact. If you spend enough time with the Alpha or the pack, it rubs off."

Stiles flexes his hands around the seatbelt, hit with the memory of Derek's shoulders, swiping a palm across Derek's face, crouched over him, the heat and fierce grip of Derek's fingers around his wrist. 

Cora continues as she shifts gears effortlessly, "There's other ways. Sex, living together, sharing blood. Sharing clothes," she adds, eyeing Stiles's hoodie. Derek's hoodie, the one that was left under a pile of discarded clothes in Derek's bedroom until Stiles put it on, fell asleep in it. Stiles refuses to feel bad about for pulling Derek into a — werewolf soulbond, or whatever — however unintentional, he gave up rights to tempering Stiles's behaviour when he left. Cora's level gaze bores into the side of his face. "Look, I know you've been lying to me, or at least admitting a lot of details about — but I don't care, okay? I don't care about what you mean to my brother unless it helps us find him."

Stiles waits for his chest to loosen, his heart to quieten, but it keeps beating, fast and steady, reminding him he's alive. "As it turns out, I don't mean that much to him."

Cora lets him lead the way through the preserve, waiting for his cues. He feels the lingering energy growing stronger as they draw closer in a way he never could before they found the nemeton, dead trees whispering in the wind and the chasm in his chest pulling him forward. His awareness narrows to his unsteady footsteps, the tide of blood rushing in his ears, skin clammy with sweat and slipping against the push of rough bark as he stops to catch his breath. 

Cora catches his arm, his feet moving even before he hears her hissed, "wait, this way, I can — there's a scent, up here—"

Stiles gets there first, falling onto his knees in the dirt by the nemeton's base, nails digging into the wood of the cellar door in frustration. The smell of dank earth hits him hard enough to choke on it, but he pushes past it, kicking up dust as he stumbles down the stairs. 

A dark shape stirs against the tangle of roots, a flicker of blue pointed towards them before it cuts out with a whimper. Cora lets out an answering noise of pain that cuts through the stillness, spurs Stiles forward. He kneels in the dirt, careful of Derek's body and the lacerations still healing, seeping black, hand on Derek's chin to tip his face up. 

"Hey, Derek, hey buddy, we're gonna get you out of here, okay? Just hold on."

Cora's claws make short work of the ropes, her face pale, tossing part of the rope to Stiles with a hiss. "Wolfsbane," she snarls. 

Derek groans as they shift him to cut his ties. 

"Last one," Cora says with a grimace, and Derek slumps like a freed puppet, all fight in him gone, his body a dead weight as they lift him. Despite the sight of him defeated, Stiles can't help the relief at seeing him again, bloody but still alive, still shifting his feet enough for them to get up the stairs and into the open air. 

Up here he looks even worse, caked in weeks of dirt and blood and completely vulnerable. Stiles has height and Cora's got werewolf strength to half-drag, half-walk him back to the car, but it's still an effort. Derek keeps his head down, breathing ragged, clutching onto Stiles's shoulders hard enough to leave bruises. 

At any moment Peter could stalk out from behind a tree and they'd be practically helpless, with only Cora to hold him off. The anticipation of it ratches Stiles's heartbeat up a few notches, keeps him moving fast enough to forget about his aching muscles and the horror show of his life as Derek bleeds on him, the cloying stench of fear and sweat and filth. 

"We should get him to Deaton's," Stiles pants. Every time he loses his footing he has to adjust Derek's weight, tug Derek's arm closer and hear his pained hitches of breath. 

"Deaton's a vet," Cora argues. She's doing better than Stiles, holding herself together despite looking like she's going to be sick. 

"Most of the time. We should've called Allison."

"I already did. She's keeping an eye out."

It would be a testament to both Cora and Allison's stealth that they managed to do that without Stiles's noticing, if he wasn't already preoccupied. He's struggling to put one foot in front of the other and hold half of Derek's weight at the same time, choking on breath and panic and his impending mental breakdown. He's not at all surprised Peter is depraved enough to keep Derek prisoner in the same place he killed the girl he was in love with, but he's still sickened by it. 

When Peter does appear in front of them, not two hundred metres from the property line and Cora's car, Stiles doesn't have the energy to be surprised by that, either. Peter's presence must stir something in Derek; he snaps his head up, human teeth bared, growling on instinct. 

"I have to say, Stiles, that's some great detective work."

"Thanks," Stiles says, gritting his teeth, "it runs in my family."

"It does make me reconsider killing you. You're becoming something of a problem."

From the corner of Stiles's vision, Cora is stiff, nails growing into claws as she steadies herself under Derek's weight. "That's enough, Peter." Her voice is a low and guttural warning. 

He turns his ice cold gaze on her, fangs dropping over his bottom lip, matching her warning growl with his own. Stiles is at a loss for a plan of action — no bat, no back up plan, only one set of claws. Short of letting Cora take on Peter — effectively and literally throwing her to the wolves — and making a run for it, hoping Derek has recovered enough in the last few minutes without the wolfsbane sapping his strength to keep himself upright, they've got nothing. He’s no match for Peter in a fight, and at the moment neither is Derek. He’s not going to suggest it but it’s the best shot they have.

Cora takes initiative by dropping Derek’s arm and stepping forward, her teeth bared and claws extended. It’s practically a declaration of war.

Peter smiles, slow and cruel. “Really, Cora? After everything I’ve done for you — accepted you into my pack, rid this town of the hunters that destroyed our family—”

Cora interrupts with a snarl. “If you’re going to give me the ‘you’re nothing without me’ speech, you can shove it.” She moves to stand in front of Derek, the beta shift elongating her mouth, forcing her face into something inhuman and terrifying to look at, no matter how many times Stiles has seen it. 

Something moves in the corner of his periphery, branch swaying as it disappears. He has just enough time to haul Derek to the ground before an arrow flies through the air, exploding in a flash of light and sparks as it hits the tree behind them.

Cora pushes at him, hissing for him to run, but Derek doesn’t budge. Peter roars, pulling a knife out of his shoulder, face transformed into the image from Stiles’s nightmares as he whirls to face Allison’s bow. The tip of her arrow hangs a foot in front of his face, string pulled tight across her cheek and her eyes blazing yellow. The last time they did this, they had Scott and Chris Argent; Derek was wounded then, too, but at least he could fight. Stiles tries unsuccessfully to get him standing, pull him away to safety while Peter is distracted, but he shrugs Stiles off, struggling to stand on his own. His eyes flicker between human green and werewolf blue like he can’t sustain it, like whatever Peter did to him drained him of his ability to transform.

Peter takes a step towards Allison and gets an arrow to the other shoulder that does nothing to deter him, his body rippling, clothes splitting at the seams, flesh erupting into fur. Allison fires another arrow that Peter deflects with a swipe, his movements too fast for Stiles to see, his mind whirling as the chaos unfolds. Allison keeps firing shots, almost running backwards to keep out of Peter’s reach as he stalks forward, still transforming; Cora takes a running leap to land on his back, teeth digging into his shoulder, but he has her by the throat before she can do any damage, crushing her windpipe if her wheezing growls are any indication. He tosses her aside, managing to dodge the sharpened projectiles Allison throws his way, body unnaturally graceful for something its size.

Stiles glances away from the battle to find Derek moving, darting between the trees with speed he wasn’t capable of ten minutes before. He’s still bleeding from the wounds covering his torso, but it doesn’t slow him down, and before Stiles can register it, Derek’s got Peter’s arms held behind his back, wresting him into submission. Allison is there a second later, bow and knives discarded in favour of the claws she digs into Peter’s belly, dragging her hands up his sternum to open him up. Peter’s final roar is strangled like it’s caught in his throat, choking on the blood he spits from his mouth. 

Stiles moves to where Cora lies, checks the gash across her face, pulse weak under his fingers. After that it’s quiet, Allison’s words thick in the silence as she presses in close to Peter, fangs bared and mouth hanging open. 

“You did this to me,” she says. “You had this coming.” 

She glances up to Derek for final confirmation and he nods, a short jerk of his head that’s all she needs before her teeth latch onto the vulnerable flesh of Peter’s throat.

Stiles looks away but he can still hear the sound of skin tearing and Peter’s last gurgled breaths. His body drops to the ground with a soft thud, cushioned by the blood pooling under their feet. When Stiles glances up again, Allison has stepped away, and Derek is slumped against a tree, breathing hard. He meets Stiles’s gaze, almost questioning, confused like he’s noticing Stiles for the first time.

When he moves towards them Stiles instinctively shifts back, only checking himself when Cora grabs his shoulder to push herself up. The cuts around her throat have faded to mottled bruises, and she’s calm, her hand still on Stiles when Derek walks over, a sign of protection, or comfort. Derek only makes it a few steps before he collapses to his knees, keeling over sideways before Cora darts forward to catch him.

“Let’s go to Deaton’s,” she says.

Stiles gestures to Peter’s corpse. “What about—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Allison says. She’s standing a few feet away, stock still and gazing up. When she turns her head to catch his gaze, her eyes are red. “This is my territory, now.”

Stiles feels the upcoming adrenaline crash, the dryness in his throat, the dull pain in his body start to come back through his aching muscles, despite how tight his chest is still, this close to heart of the forest. “Once word gets out, others will be coming. Alphas.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“They’re not just going to threaten you. They’ll try to get you in their pack, make you one of them. They’ll make you kill — it’ll be bad.”

She moves closer, quick, sure steps and a calmness about her in the aftermath of battle that has Stiles wishing for a bat. “Are you going to help us?”

“Allison, I — I’m leaving.”

“But if you stayed.” She phrases it with enough authority to sound like an order. At seventeen, she’s probably one of the youngest Alphas in the country, if not the history of Beacon Hills, raised by hunters and crafted into the perfect weapon. She’s going to be fine. He’s not part of this pack and he doesn’t belong here, but he still can’t help feel responsible for what’s going to happen.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She smiles anyway, cheek dimpled, defenses dropped. “Don’t be. You came through, that’s what matters. You could make a good hunter one day, you know.”

Stiles ducks his head to hide his discomfort at the thought. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?” Peter’s eyes are open, staring blankly past the pool of discolored dirt. 

“Think of it as a warning.” She flashes him another dimple but the warmth of it is lost when her eyes turn red.

Cora nudges his shoulder. “Hey, let’s go.” She looks exhausted, but she’s still supporting all of her brother’s weight.

“Right, just,” he turns back to Allison, “if you’re ever looking for friends, I think you and Scott McCall would hit it off pretty well.”

Allison nods, watching them leave; Stiles feels her eyes on his back all the way to the car, weight in his chest lifting with each step.

~

Derek wakes up several times as Deaton cleans his wounds, dropping unconscious again just as quickly each time, sometimes growling, digging his nails into the examination table until his claws come out. It’s a good sign, according to Deaton; his wolf coming back after being suppressed for so long.

Stiles leans against the wall, hands clenched in the pocket of his hoodie to keep from reaching out at Derek’s huffs of pain. He’s almost forgotten that Derek can speak, has to struggle to remember the sound of his voice in the quell after each new machine gun burst of violence, the softness of his tone in contrast to what he would say.

Cora keeps watch with him or paces, occasionally barking orders at Deaton and eventually grabbing the disinfectant out of his hands to finish the job herself. Once all of Derek’s wounds are flushed free of any remaining traces of wolfsbane, mistletoe pumped from his stomach, Deaton motions for Stiles to come into his office. Stiles hesitates, hovering in the exam room while Derek slowly comes back to consciousness, flexing the ropes of muscle in his back, skin pale but healing. Stiles should leave before Derek sees him, before he can convince himself this is more important than getting home. 

“Stiles, if you’re ready, we can perform the spell now.”

Stiles nods. “In a minute. There’s something I—”

Deaton lays a hand on his shoulder in comfort. “Whatever you need to say, now is the time.”

When Stiles turns back, Derek is conscious and sitting up on the exam table, scowling as Cora wipes the remaining blood off of his face. Stiles clears his throat and Derek opens his eyes, stare cool and guarded but at the very least he doesn’t seem like he wants to go through on any of the threats he used to make. He feels petulant for wanting Derek to be thankful, at the very least grateful, but it took them months and countless casualties to work up to not goading each other into an argument whenever they were in the same room together, helping each other because it was good for them and not because it was easy. After Derek came back to Beacon Hills he was damaged, so rough at the edges no one could touch him, living collateral for being hunted, and this Derek probably isn’t much better -- probably worse, since instead of growing and building a pack and forming alliances he’s spent the last few months tied up, tortured, sapped of everything that makes him _him_. It would be wrong for Stiles to expect anything of Derek now, especially when he’s about to leave.

Derek raises an eyebrow after a minute of silence.

Stiles fidgets with the hem of his hoodie. “So,” he says, because he can’t help himself. All of Derek’s reveals started with “so”. _So my sister is back_ , and, _So, the county reclaimed my house_. “I just wanted to say, um. I’m leaving. So, uh, thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah, okay,” Cora replies, distracted by the wince Derek makes as she cleans his wrists. “You too. Thanks. We would’ve taken Peter out anyway, I mean, you kind of just cowered out of the way. But,” she continues, as Stiles tries not to be offended by her tactlessness, “you did find my brother.” She tosses the rags into the bin without looking and turns towards the door. “I need some fresh air. You’ve got blood on you.” She wrinkles her nose at the dark stains on Stiles’s hoodie and marches out.

“Such charm, I’m going to miss it,” he says.

“It’s Stiles, right?”

Stiles jumps, bangs his hip into the table when he turns back to Derek, distracted by the clean expanse of his chest, muscles wasting but no less impressive. “Ow, yeah, that’s me.”

“You found the nemeton.”

“Doing impossible shit on a daily basis is kind of my thing.”

Derek’s expression reverts from almost praising to the one-eyebrow raise of disdain. It changes again a second later as he sniffs the air and his eyebrows draw together. “That’s my sweatshirt.”

Stiles tries to fight the heat that colours his face. “Finders keepers.” Derek tilts his head with an assessing look that voids all of Stiles’s efforts not to blush. “I’m glad you’re okay now,” he adds, turning towards the door. “You should — I know it’s not my place but — you should find somewhere to settle down, you’ve got Cora, you guys are going to be fine. Probably best to stay away from Beacon Hills, though.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Derek murmurs in response as Stiles leaves. It’s the best Stiles is going to get, the possibility that at least one person might make it out of this town alive.

~

He wakes with a start, the smell of honey and burnt aster stinging his nostrils, flailing to free himself from the bed sheets. He’s disoriented, limbs uncoordinated, feeling much the same as when he woke up three days ago, minus the pain of being thrown into a wall. It’s daylight, mid-afternoon judging by the position of the sun through Derek’s windows, dim like the room is wrapped in gauze. Scott surprises him with a shout, enveloping him in a crushing hug.

“What th— oh my god.”

“Dude,” Scott says, loud enough that Stiles cringes. Scott pulls back, his face serious as he checks Stiles for injuries. “Where were you? How are you—”

Stiles pulls him in for another hug instead of answering. “I’ll explain everything, just — not right now, okay?”

Scott frowns. “Seriously, dude, I thought you’d been kidnapped. I almost attacked Ethan and Aiden because I thought they had something to do with it.”

“I’m touched by your devotion to me, but for once they weren’t up to some shady shit. I’m not going to lie, I wouldn’t be upset if you punched Aiden in the face again.”

Scott gapes at him. “I only did that once!”

“But it was awesome,” Stiles says, reassuring. Being around Scott is even easier than he remembers.

“You know you’re covered in blood. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! It’s not my blood. But it’s been a rough couple of days, oh my god, dude.” Scott smiles at that, looking younger despite the shadows under his eyes. Stiles probably doesn’t look much better. “How did you hold up without me? You didn’t do anything stupid, right? Nothing that’s going to get us killed before graduation.”

Scott ducks his head, looking guilty, and Stiles’s stomach clenches. “Don’t hit me, okay?”

“Dude, what did you do?”

Scott is saved from answering, relief and panic conflicting on his face, when the door opens and Derek strides into the loft. He looks peaceful, calm, and he’s holding a bag of groceries like it’s a normal thing for him to do, stopping in the middle of the room. “I hope I didn’t interrupt,” he says, with the smugness of someone who knows they did and isn’t sorry.

Stiles stares, breathing evenly to keep his own panic from surfacing, feeling his periphery narrow to the blood rushing in his ears, boiling in his veins. “ Very funny, jerk,” he says. Derek has the nerve to look sheepish at having heard them and walked in at the most dramatic moment. All of the anger Stiles felt at Derek leaving comes back up, eating at his sense of accomplishment and ability to keep it together. He uses it now to stop the relief at seeing Derek again, alive, unharmed, almost smiling at Stiles’s surprise. “We were having a moment, actually.” He gestures to the bed — Derek’s bed — they woke up on together and Scott’s hand clenched in Stiles’s sleeve.

Derek drops the groceries in the kitchen — the portion of the loft the fridge sits — with a nod. “Don’t let me stop you.” When he turns away, Scott punches Stiles in the arm.

 _What_ , Stiles mouth, squaring off against Scott’s glare with his own.

“Dude, come on,” Scott whispers. “I didn’t know where you were so I called him.”

“You thought I went after him?” Stiles hisses, not low enough for Derek not to hear, but low enough for him to get the hint he’s not a part of the conversation. "That was an idiot thing to do."

“I didn’t have a choice!”

“Uh, yes you did!” Stiles takes a breath to keep his voice from rising to hysterics. He’s angry in a way even he can’t really justify anymore, but it’s the only thing keeping him from not falling apart. “This has nothing to do with him.”

Scott gives him a pitying look. “Lately, dude, when something’s up with you, it always has to do with him.” He doesn’t try to lower his voice, and the betrayal Stiles feels is on par with his anger at Derek leaving, coming back like he has the right to walk right in and upset the balance the way he did when he left. Stiles has been throwing punches for so long, hoping they’d hit hard enough for someone to feel as bad as he does, to hurt anyone but himself. Scott’s words come back to him, the break up that left him an open wound and only himself to feel it. Stiles hasn’t been healing; he’s been festering.

Still, he’s angry, and his arm hurts from where Scott punched it, so he lashes out, pushing at Scott’s shoulder. Scott doesn’t budge, instead pushes back just hard enough to send Stiles off the bed and sprawling on the floor.

“Sorry dude,” Scott says, sounding anything but, “that was for your own good.” He stands, turns to Derek with, “I’ll see you later, yeah?” Stiles watches his retreating back, imagining all the ways he’s going to exact his vengeance. 

Derek’s still unpacking groceries by the time Stiles stands up, refusing to acknowledge the throbbing pain in his back from where he landed, in case Derek does something stupid like apologise on Scott’s behalf.

Stiles watches him for a minute, mind reeling from the sight of Derek doing something so mundane. After three full days mind-altering surprises, Stiles can’t deal with any more.

“He was really worried,” Derek says, conversationally. “You should go easier on him.”

“I know he was worried,” Stiles snaps, “I’d be worried if he hadn’t been worried.”

Derek turns away but his shoulders are tense. “He’s an Alpha now. If he’s harder on you it’s because he has to think about the wellbeing of the pack—”

Stiles makes a frustrated noise. “I don’t want to talk about Scott, or whatever bullshit rationales you’re projecting.”

Derek puts down the box of generic bran flakes, head cocked to the side like he’s listening, or at least contemplating. His eyes track the length of Stiles’s body, but his face is still and expressionless, infuriating to look at in the flesh and not a memory Stiles has been beating his fists against. Not the stray, not the man broken at the hands of his own mistakes. 

“So, you’re back now or—? ‘Cause watching you come and go is giving me whiplash.”

“If I said I was staying, would it upset you?”

Derek’s expression slips and he looks so dejected and hopeful at the same time that Stiles has to bunch his fists in his hoodie to stop from punching something. “Don’t play cute. This isn’t the romantic reunion in every Rachel McAdams movie.”

Derek’s lip twitches upward, hope winning out. “Okay.”

“It’s been quiet lately. Quieter. It’s not like we need you around to keep the peace.”

“I know.” Derek scrunches the paper bag in his hands. “I was terrible at that anyway.” He says it with such sincerity Stiles almost feels sorry for being so unfair, but he’s too angry for sorry to last. 

“I haven’t watched people I care about almost die for some stupid vendetta for, like, weeks now.” He pushes the most recent images out of his mind before they cloud his judgement and turn his words into a lie. He’s got a point, probably, something more substantial than using his friends’ deaths to hurt Derek.

“That must be nice.” Derek crosses his arms over his chest.

“Caring about people? It is, you should try it sometime.”

Derek’s nostrils flare in anger, his mouth pinched. “If you want me to leave—”

“This is your apartment!” Stiles’s voice rises to a shout that echoes through the space not taken up by the bare scraps of life, a couch, a table, a bed, a fridge.

“What do you want me to say? That I didn’t care when I thought Scott would be better for this town than I ever was? I didn’t care that Cora could do better in a real pack, with a real Alpha and a chance to finish school without being killed as collateral? That I knew you’d get over whatever ideas you have about me—"

Stiles interrupts, “If you cared, you wouldn’t have left.”

It shuts Derek up, if only for a minute, long enough for his face to fall like Stiles’s punch landed this time. “Is that what you really think?”

“I told you, the night before you left, that you had something here and — and you left anyway.” Stiles scrubs a hand through his hair, digging his nails into his scalp. “You weren’t, like, Alpha of the Year or anything, but you still matter. It’s not just land and people, Derek, we were fucking making — we were building something, more than just shit like recruiting the right number of people to make a pack. And you still fucking left.” He repeats for emphasis just in case it hasn’t sunk in. Derek stares at him across the miles of wood flooring and empty space between them. “If I’d known you were going to leave, I wouldn’t have fucking bothered in the first place.”

Derek glances away, down to his crossed arms, the claw marks in the linoleum, anywhere but at Stiles. “Did it ever occur to you that most of what happened was a direct result of me being here?”

“Yeah, except that’s bullshit,” Stiles spits. “Do you ever actually listen to yourself long enough to hear past the martyr complex?” He’s just being unfair now, piling on the kind of crap Derek has probably already said to himself, but he can’t seem to stop.

Derek clenches his jaw, furious. Good, Stiles thinks. “If you don’t want me here, just — say it.”

“I didn’t want you to fucking leave in the first place.” Stiles doesn’t think the words through before it’s too late to take them back and they hang heavy and ugly in the following silence, ringing like a gunshot. He scrubs a hand over his face, in part not to look at Derek’s reaction and partly to hide his own.

“You could’ve just said that, too.” Derek steps forward, his anger tempered into something else, hand twitching by his side like he’s going to reach out. Stiles does and doesn’t want him to, caught between needing it and hating himself for needing it.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference then, would it?” His voice is hoarse, throat raw, choking back everything he’s felt for the past few days, weeks, that threatens to reduce him to a twisted, broken mess.

Derek’s voice is steady and meets Stiles’s gaze. “It makes a difference, now.”

They’re only a foot away from each other, gravitating inward while they talk, Stiles’s body betraying him even more by closing the distance with a hand on Derek’s shoulder and their mouths pressed together.

The next second stretches uncomfortably long as Stiles’s brain catches up, freezing in place with his eyes open to catch the change on Derek’s expression when it clicks and he responds. It’s barely more than a press of open lips, but Derek pressing back, angling his mouth just so, makes Stiles’s pulse kickstart, beat so hard in his chest he needs to take a step back.

“I didn’t mean to—” Stiles beings, at the same time Derek says, “I wasn’t expecting,” and they both fall silent. Stiles clears his throat. “That wasn’t — I’m not trying to manipulate you, or anything.”

Derek nods, as much as confession that the thought had crossed his mind. “We can forget it, if that’s what you want.”

Stiles feels his words like a bucket of cold water. “Dude, you weren’t that bad,” he jokes, mouth dry, lips tasting of Derek’s. He can still feel the pressure, the heat of Derek’s body, already reaching out again. It would be easier to agree, step back, leave Derek to shelve his groceries alone, so much easier to suppress his feelings and continue living every day like a raw nerve, never touching or making eye contact for too long, holding his breath for the day Derek finds someone else who isn’t hardwired to hurt him, like Kate, like Jennifer, like Stiles is. 

Easier than to admit how much he wants this, the hard curves of Derek’s body that have softened slightly, the catch of his stubble, the easy familiarity of working side by side for months. Stiles thinks about the hole in his chest that drew him to Derek, twice now, splitting at the seams with frustration.

“I’ve been sleeping in your bed for a week. In a hoodie of yours I found after going through your stuff for some clue why you left. Do I look like I’m just going to forget it?” Stiles is breathing harshly but Derek doesn’t say anything, glances down.

“You’re wearing my sweatshirt, that’s covered in my blood. You’re — it’s very confusing.”

“It’s weird that that does it for you.”

Derek lets out a pained noise. “The whole apartment smells of you, and you smell like me.”

“So says half the population of this town.” They’re standing close enough that Stiles only has to lean forward to rest their foreheads together, to breathe in the tang of Derek’s cologne and the base scent of his skin, like motor oil and shucked wheat. “I guess I’m a little slow on the uptake.”

Derek nudges their mouths together for another kiss that lasts longer, burns slower but just as hot, hands on Stiles’s waist to bring him closer until there’s no more space between them, just two people existing, slotting themselves into place until they’re comfortable.

~

Derek’s shower isn’t big enough for two people but they make it work, rubbing soap suds into each other’s skin as an excuse to touch, Stiles leaning into the spray of water to kiss Derek until the shampoo he hasn’t washed out runs into his eyes and he breaks off, coughing. Everything Stiles used to think was hard is nothing compared to restraining himself when Derek runs soap-slick hands up his sides, licking into his mouth, pushing him against the shower wall and using his own body for warmth in lieu of the water.

“Shit, fuck, I wanna—” Stiles’s words catch on a groan as Derek rocks into him, his cock a hard line pressing into Stiles’s hip. “Let me touch you, fuck.”

Derek smiles into his skin as he gets a hand around them both, hands bracketing Stiles’s head against the shower wall to keep him upright as Stiles strokes them through the heady rush and steam fogging the bathroom. They stay like that until the water runs cold and Derek shakes with effort to keep himself up, until he comes all over Stiles’s stomach and sinks to his knees, mouthing down the trail of hair that leads to Stiles’s cock until he gets there, mouth soft and irresistibly warm. 

Stiles doesn’t keep track but it’s not long, minutes at most, before he’s coming, trying to push Derek’s head out of the way so he doesn’t choke him, Derek digging his fingers into Stiles’s hips anyway and swallowing. 

They make it back to Derek’s bed, Stiles’s legs still unsteady, abandons his wet clothes to the corner of the room he designated as the laundry corner the first night he stayed over. He pulls Derek down onto the bed, curling around his back like parentheses, sets his teeth to the sharp jut of his spine as Derek pulls Stiles’s arm tighter around himself. 

The sun sets hours later, sometime after Stiles broke off a kiss to yawn into Derek’s neck and took that as his cue to give into exhaustion, fell asleep with Derek’s fingers stroking his arm, missing the contact when he wakes up, as soon as he leaves the bed. He makes himself a sandwich instead of watching Derek sleep, afraid if he reaches out he’ll break the tenuous hold of the the last few hours of silence, slapping together a piece of processed chicken loaf and mayo onto the fancy rye bread Derek bought, the only thing he seems to have splurged on.

When Derek wakes it’s with a full body stretch that shows off his physique, planes of muscle Stiles has designs on, plans accumulated through almost a year of knowing what Derek looks like with his shirt off. Derek grins like he can tell, steals a bite of Stiles’s sandwich, pulls him back into bed with a hand on his shoulder. Derek does most of the work this time, grinning, letting Stiles’s run his hands everywhere while Derek jerks him off, staring, caught, at the idiot expression Stiles makes when he comes over his stomach, panting and grateful.

Later, Derek drives them out to the preserve. The woods are cool and black and Stiles’s mind is peaceful, for once, his skin prickling with the cold wind through the window, warming his hands up between his thighs until Derek takes them, rubs them together between his own. 

“I missed you, you know,” Stiles says, and Derek ducks his head to hide a smile, drops their hands into his lap.

“I figured. I um — I did, too.”

Stiles feels a sense of victory swell up in his chest. “See? Was that so hard?” After a minute of silence, of just their hands, he says, “I don’t know what to do now. It just feels like waiting for the clock to tick down to zero and, when it does, something else will come along to fuck everything up again.”

Derek laces their fingers together, his voice quiet, calm. “Probably. But there’s always—"

“I swear to god, if you suggest leaving, I’m going to punch you in the face.”

Derek bites his lip, trying not to grin. “I was going to say, there’s always just — enjoying it, the quiet. Fighting gets comfortable after a while, makes it harder to live when there’s nothing happening.” 

He glances out of his window and Stiles follows his gaze, follows him when Derek gets out of the car, drawing him into the forest. He can’t see anything more than a foot in front of him, but he can feel the placid energy of the forest, the living things, silence knitting into the darkness until they’re inseparable, Derek’s hand clasped in his own to pull him along.

**Author's Note:**

> so this is a lot of words about a teenage werewolf show, and also my first lot of words for it, because apparently when i've been in a fandom for years and finally write something, it turns into the most fic i've ever written.


End file.
